Bruce Willis: Planet Willis
"Do me a favor... don't. There's nothing worse than knowing a great story and not being able to tell anybody. Let's talk about The Fifth Element."
Willis is quiet for a few seconds, and then says, "Glenn (Gordon) Caron, who created 'Moonlighting,' had this fresh, exciting vision of the style of the show--his humor wasn't 'on the nose,' and it worked perfectly. After he left, all the people that were trying to fill his shoes just did stuff that was on the nose, and they repeated jokes that we had done from the first couple of years, and it fell apart. And there was a scramble for power. My loyalty was always to Glenn Caron, so I had lots of problems with that. And the guy who wrote that book, he's going around saying, 'No, it's not really about Bruce,' but everyone knows that's bullshit. Let me put it in really simple form: the guy's gonna write a book and make money off the book, and then turn it into a film and make money off of that. Fuck this guy. I mink he's a jerk-off who should have said, 'Yes, I am a talentless fuck and can't really create anything out of my own mind. I'm gonna fictionalize some shit that really happened and make money off of it.' Fuck him. And if I see him, in my mind. I'd have to give him a fucking shot, I really would, because this was one of the guys who really took advantage of Glenn and his position and was always so concerned about who was in charge. Enough said?"
"The Fifth Element is a big science fiction movie..."
"I can't really talk about it," Willis says. "They just want to keep it under wraps for a while. But it's going to be really good,"
"You're doing Combat! Next, right?"
"Combat! is a World War II picture based on the TV show in the '60s, and they're working on the script right now, and I think we're gonna do it over here."
"In England?"
"Yes, probably. I don't know if they can find anything in the States that looks like Normandy. It takes place two days after the D-Day invasion of Europe."
"When you were a kid. did you play 'army'?"
"Absolutely, Every single day. There was still a big emphasis in those days. I was born in '55, so I'm talking the mid-'60s. You could still play 'army' and it wasn't stigmatized. After Vietnam, it wasn't quite as popular. WWII had that glow, it was the last righteous war, where they were trying to do the right thing, get rid of a really evil human being. There's still tons of bad guys in the world today. And a war like World War II could happen tomorrow. Stopping evil is a very righteous cause. Terrorism is the next war. Whether it's American terrorists or foreign terrorists, it's still fueled by a political/religious engine. This stuff has been going on over here in Europe for over 50 years, since the war. And all of a sudden, Americans get so crazy, like, 'Oh God, terrorism's happening in the world,' because it happened in the States."
"How come you don't do love stories? You'd really be good in one of those, I think."
"Well, the first film I did, Blind Date, that was a love story, but it didn't work. There's always some sort of love story in the movies I do, but it's usually a sick aberration of love. I guess because I played that role on television for so long."
"I never saw 'Moonlighting,'" I admit.
"What do you mean?"
"Which part don't you understand? I never saw it."
"No, that's fine, it's not weird, I just don't often meet people who have never seen it."
"Do you know when a movie's not working?"
"Sometimes. Most of the time. It's easy to get lost when you're shooting a film. That's why it's so important to have a great script and just stick to that script. Once you start changing stuff, you're fucked. My experience has been that when the script's good, and they stick to the script, you'll be OK. 12 Monkeys was shot exactly how it was written. In Pulp Fiction, the places where you laughed when you read the script were the same places you laughed when you saw the movie. But I've had those other experiences where they just chuck the script out the window, and those movies are always trouble."
"Are you a romantic guy in your life?"
"Yeah, I think so. I think I am. I don't know, what's the opposite of that?"
"I mean, if you haven't seen Demi for a long time..."
"We don't go very long without seeing each other, no more than two weeks. And that's hard. We've been away for about 10 days now and I miss them to death. My biggest problem with us working apart and being in different countries is the whole separation, taking leave of her, taking leave of my family...that's very hard for me. But you get the other side of that which is getting back together, and that's always exciting and fresh and fun. So, I can live with that."
"What's one of the wildest times you've had as an actor?"
"What do you mean by wild?"
"I don't know, where things are exciting or not what you expected."
Willis thinks for a few minutes before saying, "I'd have to say when I went to Cannes with Pulp Fiction, which was my first time there. It was so cool. Everyone went... Quentin, John [Travolta], Uma [Thurman], Samuel [Jackson]. And they went totally wild for the film over there. Plus, Quentin wouldn't let anyone see the whole film until the night they showed it there. I had seen my own work, because I had to loop it, and everyone else had seen their own work, but none of us had seen the entire film. It was just breathtaking for me, because the film is so powerful and everyone's parts were finally brought together. I had done, what?... 23 films before that? And I have to say this was a very singular experience."
We look at our watches and realize how much time has passed, ''Anything else?" Willis asks, getting up to leave.
"Well, unless you'd like to tell me stories about you and Demi, and what you do when you're not working..."
Willis just laughs, puts his hat back on, and heads out into the wind and rain.
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Martha Frankel interviewed Toni Collette for the July issue of Movieline.
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